Awesome!

Ayoo same! Also Robert Cowen too for me

All of the nylon filaments I have used are between 1.1 and 1.2 grams per cubic centimeter.

Sounds like you are describing a more or less standard clutch system which is already in use on many of the larger battlebots spinners and hammers. For the smaller bots the amount of stretch in a belt or slip from a belt on a smooth pulley is sufficient to prevent shock loads from damaging components.

Hi, greggv8! That's an intriguing idea, and definitely worth investigating. I'm in no way trying to be negative, but I can see a couple of possible problem areas: weight and complexity. In my limited experience [I'm not a qualified engineer, but I've been building and fighting heavyweight bots since 1987], if something can go wrong, it will. I think that's why things like tracks and walking mechanisms don't get used on combat bots very often. You do see some very clever stuff on military-style bomb-disposal robots, but they're not faced with weight restrictions and only have to deal with booby-traps and high explosives, not monster kinetic weaponry. ;-) Repairs to belts, sprockets and chains are reasonably quick and straightforward in the kind of 'table-top' service areas you get at many events; the sophisticated additional coupling you describe might need some pretty advanced servicing facilities. Like a garage, a hoist, and a guy in greasy overalls with a clipboard shaking his head about what the repair's going to cost. "You see, lady, the problem is, we just can't get the parts..." The weight of the unit itself might be an issue, but sound engineering could probably get around that. I've no doubt that a viscous coupling could be made sufficiently robust, because there's nothing much to break internally. (A rally car's 4-wheel drive system can take a lot of abuse.) It's just that today's bots are so powerful that when things like shrouds and housings get hit, they explode; and it's not uncommon to see an entire chassis bent out of shape. Flexible belts are light and will usually keep working after that kind of major impact; I'm not sure it'd be possible to keep a 'bent' viscous coupling running smoothly, and protecting it would mean surrounding it with a lot of fairly heavy/massive protection. I'd love to see someone working on the idea, though.

@@JustCuzRobotics - Ah, right. Sorry. I was thinking in terms of something huge and complex fitted directly to the motor's output shaft. Direct drive, splines, keyways, um... yes. That would do away with the need for belts and pulleys and gearboxes and whatnot. Spin-up and stall-protection would be a case of clever electronics and custom ESCs and so on. But as I know next to nothing about electronics, this is where I bow out, blushing, and you step in, laughing at my idiocy...

@@EleanorPeterson Not so complex. For a horizontal disk like PP3D I'd use a shaft within a shaft. The outer shaft driven by the motor, the disk attached to the inner shaft, with a pair of car wheel bearings and races supporting it in the outer shaft. Might use a plain bushing and a thrust washer on the bottom because the inner shaft isn't going to be running at high RPM relative to the outer shaft. The viscous coupling I'd mount on top, with one grooved disk connected to the the outer shaft and the other held to the inner shaft with the same nut that holds the inner shaft. The bottom disk of the coupling would have an outer wall extending upward to keep the silicone grease inside. With a lid on it, grooved on its underside, the upper coupling disk would be the middle disk with grooves on both sides. I'd also use the silicone grease on the bearing and bushing on the inner shaft for more stickiness for getting the weapon disk moving. The design for mounting on a motor shaft or an intermediate shaft would be similar. Thus the coupling is inside the robot, inside the heavy/massive protection already there for everything else, and protected from getting bent/damaged while it's protecting the motor and drivetrain.

Awesome! That's exactly what I was hoping to inspire people to do, really glad to hear it from viewers.

Awesome!

My pleasure :)

Thank you!

You're welcome!

@@JustCuzRobotics building some antweight robots myself, but no fights in Sweden that I know of. Might host an small lokal event later on so people can try and drive some pushrobots.

That's great! Don't worry if you can't get started before college, I hadn't really used any machining tools before then either. If you can take a class to learn to use machining equipment or there is a makerspace type of place on campus, just make sure you get involved there early on. Good luck! 😊

Oh man you're right, that was a mistake. Haven't thought too much about those bots in a long time! I think we used a 49:1 for Conduit's weapon and two smaller ratios for drive, and also two of similar ratios for KARMA's drive.

Yeah... the full version of that clip was a lot worse... photos.app.goo.gl/aV6fNhSELyxxhxYW8

@@JustCuzRobotics oh no! At least it didn't hit the window.

Not sure how to help you if they won't let you buy the best starter kit available. Feel free to have them email me with any questions they might have at team@justcuzrobotics.com

I agree - more events in population centers is the best way for more people to get involved. That's why I designed an open source arena design that anyone can download for free to build their own. With a bit of money, space and time, you can start a competition for 150g and 1lb bots. justcuzrobotics.com/shop/p/just-cuz-antweight-arena-plans

If the robot is retired and no longer active usually it doesn't matter. There is not any official approval process for robot names. My KARMA hasn't fought since 2017 and I heard after naming it that there was a much older robot that used the same name years ago that I knew nothing about. So feel free!

Yeah. It's a pretty common thing in the combat robotics community.

Blue Division was bad. We don't talk about Blue Division anymore.

Hahaha. Yeah V1 was blue but everyone kept joking about me copying Drizzle so I changed it to Orange and liked it much better.

@@JustCuzRobotics What is this “Drizzle?” I don’t know that bot